India has threatened to pull out of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and set up its on climate change body because it “cannot rely” on the group headed by its own Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr R K Pachauri.

The Indian government’s move is a snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

Now it is a different headline, and there is nothing about “pulling out”. So it seems this was a mistake on The Telegraph’s part. Thanks to Zeke and others who commented on it. Had it been my headline, I’d have changed it immediately once such issues were raised with support to back it up. But It was the Telegraph’s headline, and it was my expectation they would either follow up with more support for why they said this, or change it if it was wrong. It took them longer than expected, but they’ve now changed it without conceding an error.

Since this thread also went way off topic into discussion on aids, I’ve closed comments – Anthony

The Indian government’s move is a snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

Bernie, the Peace Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Its five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and roughly represent the political makeup of that body.
So don’t blame anyone else but them for the travesty!

Whatever else I suspect that the Indian version of IPCC will be more objective than the UN IPCC. They may not be 100% so but I would venture to suggest that they will be less politically driven even although they will probably rely on Indian Government financial assistance. I just have the feeling that the Indian Government has got fed up with the UN IPCC and are “thirsting” for real information.

@ Bernie,
This is the same Nobel Committee that awarded Obama the peace prize (and $1M) after he’d been in office for a whole two weeks.
They’ve hardly covered themselves in glory the last couple of years…

The guy is a railway engineer – why do they call him a scientist?
Bernie
“Yes Pachauri was bit dodgy – but after careful review of the Nobel Prize award we don’t see that anything has changed here”. – That is how it will be portrayed you can see it coming.

Excuse me??
If one reads the article – – the Indian government did not even “threaten” to withdraw. They simply expressed their extreme displeasure and stated that India would operate an autonomous agency – INCCA.
I believe that India’s actions are reasonable and prudent – – but it is always better to be accurate in reporting information than to use hyperbole – – that’s what got Dr. Jones into trouble – – remember?
Quote –“I respect the IPCC but India is a very large country and cannot depend only on [the] IPCC and so we have launched the Indian Network on Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCA),” he said.
It will bring together 125 research institutions throughout India, work with international bodies and operate as a “sort of Indian IPCC,” he added.
The body, which he said will not rival the UN’s panel, will publish its own climate assessment in November this year, with reports on the Himalayas, India’s long coastline, the Western Ghat highlands and the north-eastern region close to the borders with Bangladesh, Burma, China and Nepal.

Can China be far behind? (Chinagate) Or Brazil? (Amazongate)
Quite a change from the glory of the world stage to prospects of living out his remaining life in relative obscurity, pumping out smutty romance novels.

Maybe they can take it one step further and they, and/or Russia and/or China, could also start making more satellite observations to support their “own climate change body” (e.g. sea levels, Antarctic ice thickness, etc etc)
Certainly ironic, but does anyone trust NASA any more ??

Why would any new organisation not consider that it is in climate RESEARCH – not automatically climate ‘change’..?
Having seen elsewhere the link to the IPCC and the procedure it adopts in order to produce its reports, with all its opportunities to ‘appoint’ scientists and ‘review’ their work, I have to say the whole process is simply political in the extreme. Any relationship with investigative science is purely accidental.
Anyway – good luck to the Indian government – it will be interesting to see what they come up with – not a hockey stick in sight, I bet….!

You should not need a FOI request to get the data, models and methods that support a REAL scientific research paper.
But then again, the CRU has not been practicing the scientific method for more than two decades. The scientific method requires that the researcher publish all the original data, models and procedures needed for a skeptical analysis of any of their work. Since they are not using the scientific method then they simply are not doing science, they are (still) working in secret, they are writing fiction.
Anything output from the CRU after about 1988 is not the result of the scientific method. Any papers that used any of the outputs from the CRU for support (directly or indirectly) are tainted by inheritance. Thus they are also not a product of science.
Any paper that used any of the three global temperature surface data sets provided after 1992 have been based on data that has been demonstrated to have been intentionally corrupted. Thus they are also not a product of science.
There is no scientific research that supports the hypothesis of human induced global warming.
None.

300 years: I think the idea being expressed is that there is so much ice there that at a rate of melting Y, it would take 300 years for it all to melt in a strictly arithmetic sense – not that it is doing so. The current Y may not be accurate. I think one can disregard this notion and focus on what the IPPC claimed and what that would imply. At the elevations and temperatures involved it can’t possibly melt as fast as the IPPC claimed. Given the proper numbers an eight-grader could figure this out.

Excuse me??
If one reads the article – – the Indian government did not even “threaten” to withdraw. They simply expressed their extreme displeasure and stated that India would operate an autonomous agency – INCCA.

Er, excuse me, Anthony is reporting on a news story in Telegraph. He isn’t claiming anything about the Indian government withdrawing from the IPCC. Anthony’s only comment is that his own country (Pachauri’s) doesn’t have confidence in him, which can be inferred from the article.
Have you fired off a letter to the editor of the Telegraph?

The world will be better off.
The IPCC focus on CO2 which is only one of the Greenhouse gases at the expense of not addressing other GHG’s and Aerosols always created a lose-lose scenario for many.
Even if one fully accepts the evils of Global Warming, China and India can make a positive impact by installing precipitators and scrubbers on their smokestack industries and reduce the ‘Global Warming’ impact as well as the various pollutants that create localized health and environmental problems.
A big part of the rest of the world can justify cutting their CO2 output on ‘Energy Independence’ grounds.

Any paper that used any of the three global temperature surface data sets provided after 1992 have been based on data that has been demonstrated to have been intentionally corrupted. Thus they are also not a product of science.
Just checking surface and satellite trends since 1992 and there isn’t more than a couple of hundredths of a degree between the 4 main datasets. Hadley actually has the smallest trend. RSS and UAH are almost identical in the middle and GISS has the largest trend. But there’s not much in it.

Yet another “failure” of the UN mechanism. To fend off criticism about human rights, the worst offenders with the worst records were allowed to take over first the Commission on Human Rights and then its successor the Human Rights Council.
This time though, for “combating climate change,” with too much money at stake, the big boys won’t let them play the “blame someone else” game and want China and India to owe up to being primary “polluters” and for them to take their share of the responsibility. And all those little countries at the UN are slavering, waiting for the feast where they will suck dry the “evil rich (and carbon polluting)” nations, and are willing to toss in China and India if that’s what it’ll take.
Therefore India has no choice but to abandon a UN process for “carbon reductions,” and they have now been provided with excellent cover. Expect China to soon follow. “The science ain’t settled ’til we say it’s settled! Now back off while we check it out!”
Pachauri may be serving his home country better than he knows.

I think Pachy really burnt his bridges by insulting the Environment Minister – you don’t do that kind of thing in public in India – and this is their (the Indian Government’s) way of showing its displeasure. I doubt India will actually withdraw because they want their share of any money transfers from developed nations.
However, the mere fact that the Minister released the glacier report which didn’t support the IPCC in the first place shows that there is already a lot of skepticism to the IPCC. Furthermore, while TERI is a relatively large organization, it is not that big in Indian terms and there are a lot of other institutions which are jealous of it and quite happy to see it taken down a peg or two.

Steve Goddard (10:36:17) :
“He is at least as worthy of the Nobel Peace prize as was Yasser Arafat. Arafat’s invention of the suicide bomber and plane hijacker have become an integral part of modern life”
Do not put it on your resume. It is a cabel of scoundrels and hurts the reputation.

John Egan (09:54:31) :
“Excuse me??
If one reads the article – – the Indian government did not even “threaten” to withdraw. They simply expressed their extreme displeasure and stated that India would operate an autonomous agency – INCCA.
I believe that India’s actions are reasonable and prudent – – but it is always better to be accurate in reporting information than to use hyperbole – – that’s what got Dr. Jones into trouble – – remember?”
________________________________________________________________
For all intent and purpose, though politely couched in diplomatic language, India has just told the IPCC to piss off.
I agree that accuracy is of paramount importance, but the thread’s banner was taken directly from the UK Telegraph article:
India to ‘pull out of IPCC’
India has threatened to pull out of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and set up its on climate change body because it “cannot rely” on the group headed by its own Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr R K Pachauri.
By Dean Nelson in New Delhi
Published: 3:47PM GMT 04 Feb 2010http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7157590/India-to-pull-out-of-IPCC.html
_______________________________________________________________

Mods, Minor Typo:
“India has threatened to pull out of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and set up its on climate change …”
chg: on –> to: own
.
.REPLY: that’s from the Telegraph verbatim

The more independent centers there are evaluating this stuff, the better so far as I’m concerned. One way you suppress minority viewpoints is making sure they don’t have anywhere else to be heard by setting up the “one and only” place and trying to force all viewpoints to funnel thru it, ala IPCC.

Nice story from the Telegraphy..
Rajendra just says things trying to keep himself consistent and appearing innocent.
This is a slight dichotomy the reporter put him in given his responses,
The Economist: And would you welcome that? (procedure dealing with self interest)
Dr Pachauri: Of course, absolutely. I would have no hesitation. In fact, I would suggest it myself if I got the opportunity.
The Economist: Well you’ve had the opportunity, surely, sir?
Dr Pachauri: Why would I raise something, unless there is a reason for me to raise it?
So then you wouldn’t raise it yourself is what you’re saying, even given opportunity. Basically the opposite of what you just said Rajendra.
He goes on to make himself look cripplingly bad,
Dr Pachauri: “I can also tell you, sir, and I hope you will report this, my institute, before I became chair of the IPCC, had developed the website of the IPCC, we were paid a modest amount for doing that. The day I became chairman of the IPCC, I said I will not take any payment whatsoever and my institute expended its own resources for maintaining and running the website of the IPCC.”
Building a website, maybe that cost several hundred dollars.. WOW. The cost of maintaining the website.. like what a couple hundred or a thousand dollars a year?
Dr Pachauri: “I personally feel there is nothing like a personal example, to set the bar or the standard for what could be an absence of conflict of interest.”
You feel there’s nothing like? This is from the leader of the IPCC, what is supposed to be the most regimented and robust collaboration which completely proofs itself of criticism. Instead of taking your personal assurances Rajendra, how about a legal framework instead so that we can hold you and other unelected bureaucracies accountable for misdirection, corruption of scientific principles and causing unnecessary alarm and hysteria? You know.. just incase… we could use models if that helps put your mind at ease?
Rajendra claims he has no idea about his salary.. yeah okay. So your salary increased as of 2 years ago to keep it in line with inflation but you can’t figure out what the new salary would be? So you never knew how much you got paid and can’t do the math? Do you know what range it’s in, just a ball park figure?

After re reading the note,
Pulling out of the IPCC may be more like expressing total ambivalence and disregarding its existence. Not even enough initiative to tell them they are kicked to the curb. They are just doing all their own work and research from now on. When people quit a job by not showing up. India has apparently decided they won’t show their face there again?

Steve Goddard (10:36:17) :
Steve, I think the Nobel committee made itself irrelevant long ago. Yes Arafat was the first leak, but the damn burst with Carter, Gore, the IPCC and then Obama. It is clearly a worthless (as far as contributions) prize that is used by cowards to speak for themselves since they have no backbone to say it themselves.

I have good news for you.
It may be the hottest decade on instrument record but it certainly isn’t the hottest decade in the paleoclimate record. The entirety of the instrument record covers only a small portion – roughly 180 years – of a 900 to 1200 year cooling/warming cycle that has repeated cyclically throughout the current Holocene interglacial period that we live in.
For “hottest decade on record” to have any meaning, there needs to be some quantitative perspective of climate history. For example, during the second peak of Holocene Climate Optimum (around 4,000 years ago), temperatures were significantly warmer than this decade with temperatures rising at it’s onset at a much faster rate than trends over our narrow instrument record. Indeed over the past 300-400 years we’ve been climbing out of the low trough of a cold climate phase (otherwise known as the Little Ice Age). It should come as no surprise that this decade might be the warmest on instrument record, considering that the reliable instrument record covers only a brief portion of a predictable and decidedly warming natural climate phase.
You can’t constrain your view of climate to 180 years and say anything about global temperature normals other than to say we’re in warming or cooling climate phase. When you look at today’s climate in a proper perspective of the climate cycles across our roughly 14,000 year interglacial period, there is nothing unusual or unprecedented about the climate of the past decade.
History has undeniably demonstrated that civilizations flourished during warming climate phases and suffered during cooling phases. We’re presently in a warming phase. From a historical perspective, that’s the good news. While you love to say “I told you so,” you told us nothing of importance that we didn’t already have a more objective and contextual understanding of.

“Exactly 1,140 inches – that’s 95 feet – of snow fell on the Mount Baker Ski Area from July 1, 1998, through June 30, the most ever measured in the United States in a single season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced yesterday.
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.
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While it is considered a “verifiable amount” of snowfall, the record comes with an asterisk. Experts believe more snow falls in the Himalayas, but no one is there to measure it.”

_Jim (11:08:04) :
Wow … you guys are quick!
Jim, Anthony now has literally MILLIONS of people world-wide ready to notify him of anything of interest. Have you read The ” Tips and Notes to WUWT” page?
Allow me to quote from the ‘Spectator’ article linked above to demonstrate what I mean:-
“The main blog used by the Consensus, realclimate.org, exemplifies this problem, because it was set up by a PR company and is run by an employee of Nasa, who ties himself in knots trying to show that he does the blog in his spare time. It is also characterised by a tone of weary condescension and censoring of dissent that you do not find on most sceptic sites.
Contrast it with wattsupwiththat.com, a site founded in November 2006 by a former Californian television weather forecaster named Anthony Watts. Dedicated at first to getting people to photograph weather stations to discover how poorly sited many of them are, the site has metamorphosed from a gathering place for lonely nutters to a three-million-hits-per-month online newspaper on climate full of fascinating articles by physicists, geologists, economists and statisticians.”
The metamorphosis mentioned has, in no small part, been due to Anthony’s insistance on good manners, fair treatment, an insistence on open mindedness and the occasional wicked streak of humour!

I wouldn’t go out and celebrate just yet. India had come to dominate the politics of international Cricket by exploiting third world prejudices and is not averse to using this position to gain unfair advantage on field through the use of bullying and intimidation of officials and the judicial process. Typically, false accusations (eg of racism) are used to defend its teams actions (ball tampering or illegal technique) in much the same way that say “hide the decline” is now an accepted as a “scientific” technique in some quarters.
I would say this is about as sincere as the Guardian turning sceptical. What’s in it for them and “follow the money” come to mind.

Kudos to India.
The UK would never do the same to Dr Phil Jones, our icon of scientific research and haphazard computer file storage.
His re-appearance on TV the other night, I believe, is an attempt to rehabilitate him before Dr Pachauri blows a fuse. Dr Pachauri’s comments must horrify his political supporters and for him to alienate his own government is foolish and something you’d consider almost impossible.
The politicians must have some scientist to parade at their summit in Cancun later this year, and in the unlikely event he’s still in place, there’s no way they would dare give him any air time.
Dr Jones’ boat is going to be hard to refloat, but he’s the closest thing to a reputable scientist they have left, and there won’t be too many independent scientists queuing up to take the task on. It would be like asking someone to put on dirty socks.

Remember, the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel prize for peace. I for one have never been able to figure out just exactly what “peace” this gang has promoted or created. The Copenhagen fiasco sure didn’t look peaceful to me. The whole IPCC process is creating considerable tension between the true believers and the rest of the population. Peace? Yeah, right!

I think The Prince Charles’s speech at the Museum of Science and industry today must have been written before so much of the so called science on global warming had been proved incorrect. He still talks about saving trhe Amazon rainforest, and Himalayan glaciers melting from man made global warming. He also bases his proof that the science is correct by saying that the sea is six inches higher than 100 years ago. Not 10 years over which all the fuss is about or 20 years but 100 years. What then caused it to start rising in 1910? But does anyone have absolute scientific proof that this is so anyway, or is it yet another questionable statistic put out by the IGCC? In spite of all the data that almost daily is proving to be wrong in the IGCC report, the Prince still accepts that the science is right!
I would like to hear him say that he hopes the sceptics science might prove to be right, and that he hopes we might have nothing to worry about after all. This will, in the end, save the world from the catastraphy of economic chaos caused by governments taxing us all with billions of pounds for the impossible task of staving off global warming. Taxation which might just prove more serious for the poorer nations than the unknwn effects of minimal global warming which, if true, is outside the ability of man to change anyway. I hope and believe that the Prince will soon find that his speech today, and his recent speech at the University of East Anglia will prove to be unnecessary scaremongering. .

I think we should be careful what we wish for, when we demand Dr Pachauri’s resignation.
Dr Pachauri is doing a great job…for us. He is single-handedly exposing to the public the true nature of the IPCC’s flawed process of incompetence, arrogance, bullying and financial self-interest.
A cleverer untarnished replacement chief will probably do an internal review, find and correct a few more errors and then declare the IPCC process to be fixed, and the science again unchallengeable.

Pachi, as you now call him, nearly pulled off the greatest mass economic catastrophe in recent times.
Many trillions of dollars in extra taxes forced on a world economy which just barely escaped plunging into an economic depression. In other words, he was almost able to claim responsibilty for seizing defeat from the jaws of victory and being the principal architect of an utterly pointless decade long depression.
Copenhagen came far too close in succeeding for my mind. Goofy politicians – and sadly they are far too many of them – can maybe be excused for trying to be green, when they are badly advised. By now they should have started to realise they were being conned and quietly back off.
Pachi needs to be investigated and all sources of income – past and present – exposed to public scrutiny. In particular, his TERI organisation needs particular attention in any financial investigation.
Hopefully, the Indian government will look at TERI’s publicly disclosed annual report and say: “Hey, where are the numbers? No income statement, no balance sheet and absolutely nothing about how much Pachi and his cronies milk out of the organisation.”
Failing to disclose this type of disclosure simply would or should not be allowed by any professional organisation – Iran and North Korea excepted of course.

Stephen Brown (12:39:11) :
Jim, Anthony now has literally MILLIONS of people world-wide ready to notify him of anything of interest. Have you read The ” Tips and Notes to WUWT” page?

Why, thanks for the update Stephen. He (Anthony, and his mods and I suppose that extends to the readers even) have an interest in seeing things ‘done right’ here; through my simple act of pointing out the error accompanied by the reply denoting it was present in the original Telegraph article places the responsibility for the typo where it belongs: with The Telegraph, with no reflection on WUWT 😉 <– smile/wink emoticon
I would point out that, I would have gone one step further on noting a correction, an annotation of the error in situ thusly: a) "o[w]n" or b) the perhaps more traditional "on (sic)” seen when quoting works of others containing typos.
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Further to Dr Pachauri not resigning.
Does anyone know to whom Dr Pachauri and the IPCC report to, or who has the power to sack him. All commentators pressure only him to resign – no one is pressuring his “employer”.
He mentioned recently he was appointed by the 192 nations of the world – so does he and the IPCC only report to the UN General Assembly? If so, what is their performance review process.
An investigation of IPCC’s accountability would seem a critical element in assessing the reliability of its processes.

Press Release
IPCC to be renamed PCCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the UN’s body for the promotion of Anthropogenic Global Warming will in future be known as the PCCC (Pachauri’s Climate Comedy Club).
The re-branding exercise is an attempt to capitalise on recent events that have turned the organisation from a world leader in climate research into a laughing stock.
Rajinda Pachauri said “it’s an old adage ‘laugh and the world will laugh with you’. Well over the last few weeks the world has been laughing at us so we thought it best to capitalise on the situation. In fact the sceptics have been splitting their sides with laughter so we know we have really been touching a nerve.
“For many years we have been writing horror stories and scare stories and no matter how much doom mongering the stories contain, people seem to less and less engaged with the problem of AGW. Recently people have been opening Sunday Papers and pissing themselves with laughter. The coverage has been wall to wall. In fact we have had more press coverage since in January than in the whole of 2009. So in future we will push a softer line and use comedy and hilarious one-liners (formally known as ‘errors’ by alarmists!!!!) within our reports to try and re-engage the worlds population with the problem.
‘With immediate effect my new job title will be Chief Jester ITCOBK-m (In The Court of Ban Ki-moon) and the PCCC will be a key ministry within Ban Ki-moon’s new World Government which will be announced shortly. Ban will be the first Global President and I am delighted that he has asked me to take on this key new role.”
Serving under Pachy will be a dedicated team of Director Jesters, but most importantly, the teams of climate scientists and academics that currently create all the horror stories and the ‘end of the world is nigh’ stories, will be replaced by teams of elite comedy writers (Sub-Jesters) to really maximise the humour that can be incorporated in future PCCC reports. Cutting one liners and witty riposte will the order of the day, replacing all the doom mongering and alarmism.
In a laconic mood Pachy went on (and on)…..
“In fact as it was Ban who suggested the re-branding. I proposed that we should call the new organisation ‘The Moonies’ in deference to our new World President. But Ban made it absolutely clear that he did not want us to be confused with any other pseudo religious cults, and he was very happy that I put my name to it.
“Ban also suggested that as all heads of the great Offices of State usually have a costume to wear for great occasions and that I should create an outfit that both defined the role, and was instantly recognisable around the world. I chose a take on the traditional buffoons outfit of a multi-coloured suit with matching hat and shoes. Initial quotes for the suit were quite shocking – I have a policy of wearing only $1000 suits! But after some heated discussion I managed negotiate from initial quote of $150 up to something I as more comfortable with. I would have worn the outfit today but my Bond Street milliners in London have let me down badly on delivery. They blame it on the late delivery of the three bells which sit atop of each of the three points on the hat. I think it is disgraceful that they have tried to blame others for what is essentially, their mistake. I find this sort of finger pointing nothing short of shocking.
The Love Guru continued:
“Of course not knowing exactly how warm it will be in future years, it was difficult to design a single outfit that could be comfortably worn for millennia by my successors. So to cover all possible climate probabilities I have also designed a superbly colourful Court Jesters mankini, a male take on the traditional bikini, with bells in places you can only imagine! I am hoping to be out of office before temperatures get high enough to wear that little ensemble. If I do, I’ll be keeping my back to the wall I can tell you LOL.
“In all seriousness though (if that does not contradict my new role) you can use these sorts of historical costumes, that are still worn today, as very accurate temperature proxies. Take for instance the Speaker of the British House of Commons. He wares very thick undergarments, heavy jacket and heavy gown, stockings and a wig – clothes for a cold climate. Such regalia would never have been worn if the climate was warm. In my opinion is ample proof for the sceptics Medieval Warm Period never existed. In fact I have suggested to Michael Mann that he use these new costume temperature proxies in his next PCCC report. Michael admitted that the idea had never crossed his mind.”
Pachy also confided that Ban Ki-moon had asked for his advice on the location of the two new United Nations palaces that will soon be constructed to house the new World President:
“Obviously as the world’s leading expert on climate change, Ban Ki-moon wanted some idea on the very best locations to build his palaces. I suggested a Summer Palace on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is land already occupied by the UN. Future summers will so hot at normal longitudes (sic) so this will be a fantastic location thermostically (sic) and quite private too – The UN has long declared that the peasants scratching out a living on an overheated world will need a licence to enter Antarctica. I painted a picture in Bans’ mind that he could arrive just before the penguins fly to the North Pole on their annual migration. He could spend the rest of the summer feeding the last few remaining polar bears that of course have roamed free on Antarctica for millennia. I think I sold it to him if I’m honest. For his Winter Palace I suggested the thin strip of land that the UN also owns on Cypress, in the east Mediterranean, called the Green Zone. In most parts this is only 4 meters wide but we have, over the years, managed to widen parts of it up 7 KM wide – so it’s ideal both in terms of winter climate and privacy for such an opulent pad. Of course these palaces will be funded by proceeds of the Carbon and Vapour Trading Schemes we have previously outlined.
Finally Pachauri said:
“I am very pleased and honoured that Ban has offered me this new role. I started out as a simple Railway Engineer and now look at me, I am a simple Climate Scientist, or at least that’s what I tell people. Anyway, unlike climatology there was really no humour to be had as a Railway Engineering.” Asked what his area of expertise was in that field his reply was terse, “Bogies.”
Ends

[quote MichaelC58 (14:13:38) :]
Does anyone know to whom Dr Pachauri and the IPCC report to, or who has the power to sack him.[/quote] ,/i>
Greenpeace.
And with Greenpeace calling for him to resign, his days are numbered.

I suggest that all countries should pull out of the IPCC. We don’t need them, the money is needed at home and it is one way to make them go away. Write to your politicians, I do, tell them no tax dollars go to the IPCC. Eventually they will get it.

Wonderful news, I said it before, only India and China can put a complete stop to the deindustrialization agenda. The New World Order is not in their interest, the elite at the capstone are not Chinese or Indian.

According to this they have pulled out!
“In India the claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his assessment. In autumn, Jairam Ramesh, its environment minister, said that some glaciers were actually advancing despite global warming.
Dr Pachauri had dismissed the government’s claims as “voodoo science”, but on Thursday night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalized the IPCC chairman even further.
He announced that the Indian government will establish a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s “third ice cap”, and an “Indian IPCC” to use climate science to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.
He said: “[The] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses.?.?. they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.”http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/India+forms+breakaway+climate+change+body/2522820/story.html

It’s interesting for those of us who were around 20/25 years ago (can it really be that long?) to reflect on the great AIDS panic and to compare it with this one.
We were assured that if we had sex with anyone (even a regular partner or spouse) without using a condom we would quickly be toast, taking a lot of people with us. The hysteria from Govt (here in the UK at least, led by the Chief Scientific Advisor), and from the MSM, was incredible (literally, to those of us who stopped to think why certain sexual or social practices were resulting the spread of the disease). Armageddon was just round the corner. I was still quite, er, active in those days and came in for a great deal of flak as I insisted people were falling for a load of rubbish.
The UN of course refuses to censor those African leaders who omit to take obvious steps to protect their populations from HIV, and indeed deny the realities in faovur of mad theories about Western conspiracy, inter alia. Consequently the poor die in their millions from a largely preventable disease. Meanwhile, the pandemic in the West never happened (and like the ozone hole, and the new little ice agem, is never mentioned).
No wonder the old grow cynical!

wayne (11:58:06) : Snow in the Cascades versus the Himalayas
I wonder about who the quoted “experts” were and what they know.
Mt. Baker is quite close to the North Pacific Ocean and is in the path of the Westerlies. The ski area has a base elevation of 1,100 meters.
The Himalayas size and location make a general comparison somewhat difficult. Source of moisture, wind direction, extreme elevation, and areal coverage would have to be documented but, in general, the higher one goes the colder the air and the less absolute humidity. The snow at the Mt. Baker Ski area has a tendency to melt each summer while in the much higher mountains of the world there is less snow and less melting. All the snow and ice could melt from Mt. Baker and still the “abode of snow” would still be there but not because it snows more there. I doubt that it does.
That’s my WAG, or conclusion.

So not only are the IPCC not willing to listen to strong evidence against CO2 being the cause of climate change but are also willing to falsify evidence to the contrary, these people are unbelievable! There has been gowing evidence they have falsified and exaggerated figures to suit thier agenda, for me the proof is in the pudding all the ideas of how to solve this “problem” revolve around taxation and money. How many times are we going to see the problem-reaction-solution method work before people really wake up. For more info watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwM_B4-5gaE

This could be interesting.
There was the odd comment from the head climate guy in China saying that the idea of the sun driving climate change should be considered, and Russia has long been skeptical about AGW. If they banded together they could create an institute which would be interested in the truth about the drivers of climate change, based on actual science!
Could be the start of something big.

mpaulo (10:59:51) :
“slight off topic – BBC Viewpoint – but see the allowed skeptical comments …”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8490935.stm
Thanks mpaulo, I just need to be reminded what were up against from time to time. The replies from the AGW crowd to the article say it all. No science, just ad hom insults!
Maybe its a sign that they are getting desperate.

Hi Sam. Here’s something I posted on this topic a couple of months ago here:

Here’s an analogy that our side can use to counter the claim of consensus scientific endorsement: 25-some years ago, didn’t “science” endorse the alarmist myth of heterosexual transmission of AIDS? Wasn’t dissent considered an outrage? Weren’t we all at risk? Wasn’t AIDS going to “break out” into the general population? But somehow this embarrassment has fallen into the memory hole, probably because the MSM was fully complicit in it and wants to let that dog lie.
I think this analogy is a very powerful counter, because it shows how “science” can be hijacked and/or intimidated by fervent and fashionable (progressive) activist groups.
It also illustrates that many fence-sitters will keep quiet because they approve of a crusade’s ancillary accomplishments. In the case of AIDS alarmism, many middle-of-the-roaders approved of its encouragement of condom use. In the case of CAWG, many lukewarmers like the idea of decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, encouraging the use of public transit and more insulation, making a symbolic gesture of respect to mother earth, etc. This silence also contributes to the illusion of a consensus.
PS: I’m sure science didn’t endorse AIDS alarmism as much as it has endorsed AGW. How much needs to be researched. Fumento’s book, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS,” probably could give some idea. Apparently nearly all the most relevant scientific experts, pubic health officials worldwide, endorsed the myth, although there was no conspiracy to do so. Here’s a link to the book (which I haven’t read) on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Heterosexual-AIDS-Distorted-Partisan/dp/0895267292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260349641&sr=1-1

India had come to dominate the politics of international Cricket by exploiting third world prejudices and is not averse to using this position to gain unfair advantage on field through the use of bullying and intimidation of officials and the judicial process.

So the Indian folks responsible for international play in cricket are about like New England Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick?
Well, hell. “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.”
When they get around to international competition in baseball, you let us know.

Roger Knights had inserted a comment supportive of Fumento’s premises in the book The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS in order to claim that the AGW hypothesis is as bogus as the idea that HIV-1 infection is transmitted by way of orthosexual vaginal intercourse.
I wish to hell that were so. It’s not. While vaginal copulation is not as risky (for either partner) as is immissio-penis-in-ano whether heterosexual or homosexual, there is measurable risk of HIV-1 transmission for both receptive and insertive participants. Quantification of these risks was estimated in Varghese et al (Sexually Transmitted Diseases, January 2002).
Interestingly, there appears to be good evidence to the effect that circumcision reduces the risk of males contracting (not transmitting) HIV-1 infection in heterosexual intercourse.
While it is comforting for folks who firmly number “0” on the Kinsey scale to believe that they’re never, ever going to encounter this bastardly little retrovirus in the course of their sexual adventurings, the “myth” of heterosexual AIDS isn’t a myth at all, and the scientific credibility of anyone attempting to advance the patent idiocy that the risk of HIV-1 transmission is not very real whenever enough viral load is applied to a mucous membrane of any kind is effectively zero.
I’m not an atmospheric physicist, but I am one of those unfortunate boogers who was a Public Health Service doc back when were were still calling it “Gay-Related Immune Disorder” (GRID) instead of AIDS, and I got to see a helluva lot more than my fair share of this infectious disease – in exclusively heterosexual, non-drug-using, non-transfusion patients – long before we had anything even the slightest bit effective in the way of antiretroviral chemotherapy, so….

Tucci:
I got to see a helluva lot more than my fair share of this infectious disease – in exclusively heterosexual, non-drug-using, non-transfusion patients …

Or so they said.
I’ve picked up a used copy of Fumento’s book, but haven’t dipped into it for more than 15 minutes — and don’t want to. If there’s anyone here who’s familiar with this controversy and who’d like to argue the point with Tucci, please do.
My impression is that the consensus nowadays is that the “myth” was, almost entirely, a myth. Certainly no one in authority is making any public fuss about it now. If it were more than a minor risk, we’d still be bombarded by messages from above.

My impression is that the consensus nowadays is that the “myth” was, almost entirely, a myth. Certainly no one in authority is making any public fuss about it now. If it were more than a minor risk, we’d still be bombarded by messages from above.

Haven’t done much work in infectious diseases, have you, Roger? I’m not getting to CROI this year, but abstracts for past conferences are available online for your review, and the materials from the 2009 Annual Meeting of IDSA (29 October through 1 November) are pretty much open for anybody to scan.
Articles from AIDS, JAIDS, the Journal of Virology and the other publications centrally focused on HIV-1 infections tend not to be freely accessible, so I recommend PubMed as a portal by which you can at least survey abstracts.
Since The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS was published in 1990, there’s been no discontinuation of research on the subject, and no “settled science” except for the appreciation of how the approximation of mucous membranes conduces to the transmission of varying levels of viral load (with said viral load being, ceteris paribus, directly proportional to the risk of contracting chronic HIV-1 infection).
I don’t accuse Fumento of denying that heterosexual vaginal intercourse is a means by which HIV-1 infection may be contracted. In fact, Dr. Fumento has stipulated (1987) that “…the profile of the typical victim of heterosexually transmitted AIDS is a lower-class black woman who is the regular sex partner of an IV drug user.”
To imply that because “no one in authority is making any public fuss about it now,”:there is such low risk of heterosexual transmission that the risk is negligible is pretty much bugnuts.
Since when has anyone skeptical of the AGW fraud ever had any cause to rely upon any someone “in authority” – i.e., a politician with no real priority other than getting re-elected or elected to a post of greater power – as a reliable indicator of factual reality?

It appears The Telegraph has changed the headline. Removing the ‘pull out’ statement, which does make it sound like Anthony is saying something that isn’t true.
(Note that I simply followed the links provided). The new headline appears to be – as of this moment:India forms new climate change body
The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

There are two camps in India on climate science. The environment Minister is opposed to Pachuri, and backed the Himalayan study by Dr. Raina. Looks like he has also been instrumental in formation of the India’s own climate science panel.
The Indian PM, basically a boot-shiner, will do whatever Obama and a certain Mrs. Sonia, will ask him to do. He has Pachuri on board as some sort of advisor for something. Me thinks the Indian PM is trying hard to win the Nobel Peace prize for good relations with Pak, so he’ll basically take a stand that’ll put him in good stead for a Nobel in the future
So when Ramesh mentions support at highest level for Pachuri, it is basically a sarcastic remark.

Climate scepticism ‘on the rise’, BBC poll showshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8500443.stm
There has been an increase in the number of British people who are sceptical about climate change, a poll commissioned by BBC News has suggested.

Tucci (04:57:38) :
Haven’t done much work in infectious diseases, have you, Roger?

No. Thanks for asking.

Tucci (04:57:38) :
Since when has anyone skeptical of the AGW fraud ever had any cause to rely upon any someone “in authority” – i.e., a politician with no real priority other than getting re-elected or elected to a post of greater power – as a reliable indicator of factual reality?

Fumento isn’t a politician. Neither are all the public health officials and workers in infectious disease who once were but are no longer crying wolf.

To imply that because “no one in authority is making any public fuss about it now,” there is such low risk of heterosexual transmission that the risk is negligible is pretty much bugnuts.

Nonsense. The fuss hasn’t gone away just because there is no funding for public health warnings in the media. It’s because the experts in the matter have conceded that there’s no general threat.

WHO: No Heterosexual AIDS Pandemichttp://sweetness-light.com/archive/who-25-year-aids-campaign-was-misplaced
From the UK’s Independent:
The opening day of the 61st World Health Organisation (WHO) assembly on May 19, 2008 in Geneva.
Threat of world Aids pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits
A 25-year health campaign was misplaced outside the continent of Africa. But the disease still kills more than all wars and conflicts
By Jeremy Laurance
Sunday, 8 June 2008
A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared.
In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO’s department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa.
Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his career leading the battle against the disease, said understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to populations everywhere, it was now recognised that, outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk groups including men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers and their clients.
Dr De Cock said: “It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in other countries. Ten years ago a lot of people were saying there would be a generalised epidemic in Asia – China was the big worry with its huge population. That doesn’t look likely. But we have to be careful. As an epidemiologist it is better to describe what we can measure. There could be small outbreaks in some areas.”
In 2006, the Global Fund for HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis, which provides 20 per cent of all funding for Aids, warned that Russia was on the cusp of a catastrophe. An estimated 1 per cent of the population was infected, mainly through injecting drug use, the same level of infection as in South Africa in 1991 where the prevalence of the infection has since risen to 25 per cent.
Dr De Cock said: “I think it is unlikely there will be extensive heterosexual spread in Russia. But clearly there will be some spread.” …
Aids organisations, including the WHO, UN Aids and the Global Fund, have come under attack for inflating estimates of the number of people infected, diverting funds from other health needs such as malaria, spending it on the wrong measures such as abstinence programmes rather than condoms, and failing to build up health systems.
Dr De Cock labelled these the “four malignant arguments” undermining support for the global campaign against Aids, which still faced formidable challenges, despite the receding threat of a generalised epidemic beyond Africa.Any revision of the threat was liable to be seized on by those who rejected HIV as the cause of the disease, or who used the disease as a weapon to stigmatise high risk groups, he said…
Critics of the global Aids strategy complain that vast sums are being spent educating people about the disease who are not at risk, when a far bigger impact could be achieved by targeting high-risk groups and focusing on interventions known to work, such as circumcision, which cuts the risk of infection by 60 per cent, and reducing the number of sexual partners.
There were “elements of truth” in the criticism, Dr De Cock said. “You will not do much about Aids in London by spending the funds in schools. You need to go where transmission is occurring. It is true that countries have not always been good at that.” …

Of course there’s surely still SOME risk of infection, but it’s 5% or less of the level we were warned about. That’s the point I was trying to make: That a vastly overstated alarmist campaign can, for a lengthy period, be supported by a massive consensus of experts, giving rise to the perception that only “deniers” and scoundrels would dare to question it. The experts can be massively wrong, even though no conspiracy or monetary reward is involved.

Roger Knights seems determined to stay off-topic in a discussion of AIDS transmittal risks (even citing the UK’s Independent – which in describing the syndrome as “Aids” instead of correctly capitalizing the acronym becomes immediately suspect as technically unreliable) misrepresents me as having called attorney Michael Fumento (is someone with a Juris Doctor degree supposed to be called “Doctor”?) a politician.
He’s not. He’s a lawyer who has not (to my knowledge) ever stood for public office.
Now, Dr. De Cock in an infectious diseases guy with special training and experience in tropical medicine, but his purpose since taking over as director of the WHO’s Department of HIV/AIDS in 2006 has been “…to move toward trying to find rational regimens and get to one, or a few, regimens worldwide. So that someone in the United States would get the same drugs as someone in Namibia.” (interview published 11 June 2009)
For a number of different reasons (co-infections, drug adverse events profiles, resistance characteristics of “treatment-experienced” HIV-1 inocula, viral subtypes [clades], patient compliance factors, you name it), antiretroviral regimens are likely to continue varying from country to country.
I can’t fault Dr. De Cock for wanting more of those big taxpayer bucks turned toward increasing the availability of chemotherapeutic agents among the people of the Third World, but what is spent on education in the First World countries to prevent HIV-1 transmittal is of substantial economic value relative to the costs of diagnosis and treatment, and it’s also valuable in that it reduces the transmittal of the old litany of venereal diseases as well as Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.
And HCV infection is not a trivial matter, either all by itself or as an HIV-1 co-infection.
So I don’t really agree with Dr. De Cock’s “global” view. Keeping one American adolescent from screwing himself/herself into a chronic HIV-1 infection and then entering a lifetime of repeated CD4 cell counts, viral load studies, genotyping, phenotyping, and HAART regimen after miserable, sickening, wearisome HAART regimen as the bug inevitably develops resistance mutations…. Damn, that’s a lot of money down the proverbial rat hole.
Dr. De Cock seems to have fallen into Bastiat’s fallacy of the Broken Window. Not to wonder. The WHO is his rice bowl, right?
Of course, if that weren’t enough, you have to understand that I’m more of an MMWR/CDC guy than I am a WHO worshiper.
Let’s put paid to this exchange. HIV-1 infections are transmissible by way of heterosexual contact. The risk thereof is substantially increased (its in the literature) by high viral loads in the bloodstream of the already-infected participant and also by genital ulceration (such as occurs with many other venereally transmissible infectious disorders).
This is probably one of the principal reasons why HIV-1 infections are so commonly transmitted via heterosexual intercourse in sub-Saharan Africa. The men and women already infected are also harboring herpetic, gonococcal, syphilitic, and/or lymphogranulomatous infections out the kazoo, and going undiagnosed and untreated, millions of people there develop those high HIV-1 viral loads long before they become clinically symptomatic. We’re tighter on surveillance and pick it up quicker.
Except, of course, in populations where avoiding health care pretty much goes hand-in-hand with avoiding the police. IV drug users.
Rates of heterosexual transmission remain high enough to cause concern, and playing the warmist “Nurmee! Nurmee! Nurmee! I’m not listening to you!” game about it is about as spectacularly cement-headed as can be imagined.
—

Nonsense. I’m not prepared to follow you into an abstruse discussion of the medical details of the transmission mechanism that show that heterosexual transmission is possible. That was YOUR diversion. I don’t deny that there is some risk to heteros. Neither did Fumento. Here’s an extract from Wikipedia’s entry on his position:

Although he would be accused of claiming heterosexuals have no AIDS risk, the back cover of his AIDS book states, “The ‘myth’ of heterosexual AIDS consists of a series of myths, one of which is not that heterosexuals get AIDS. They certainly do get it . . .”

I’m trying to stay on the topic, which was: Is the threat of heterosexual AIDS within a mile of what we were assured it would be back in the 80s, or was it vastly exaggerated? Here are examples of the alarmism I mean, from a paragraph in Wikipedia devoted to Fumento:

By 1987, the theme [of AIDS alarmism among experts and scientific papers and those who quoted such sources] had become common. A January U.S. News & World Report cover story declared, “The disease of them is suddenly the disease of us . . . finding fertile growth among heterosexuals.” A New York Times headline that month read: “AIDS May Dwarf the Plague,” citing remarks of then-Secretary of Health and Human Services, Otis R. Bowen, that AIDS could be worse than the “Black Death”, estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe’s population. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop made remarks giving rise to the term “heterosexual AIDS explosion.” Oprah Winfrey told her audience, “Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years.”

Those were the claims. They were exaggerations by a factor of ten or 20. Or more. There was no risk of a pandemic, as claimed. Heterosexuals were not equally at risk as gays, etc., as claimed (though not in the stories just cited).

Nonsense. It’s not that they’re ignorant that the term is an acronym, and that acronyms have heretofore been capitalized by convention. Rather, they’re following the new “down style” convention of recent decades, where only the initial letter is capitalized. For instance, computer languages that used to be all-caps are now usually initial-capped. E.g., COBOL is now commonly printed as Cobol, FORTRAN as Fortran, etc., even though these are acronyms. The ignorance in this matter is yours.

misrepresents me as having called attorney Michael Fumento … a politician.

Well, you called someone a politician and implied I relied on him. You wrote:

Tucci (04:57:38) :
Since when has anyone skeptical of the AGW fraud ever had any cause to rely upon any someone “in authority” – i.e., a politician with no real priority other than getting re-elected or elected to a post of greater power – as a reliable indicator of factual reality?

In what I wrote I nowhere relied on a politician in authority for my belief that AIDS alarmism had been debunked. The only person I relied on for that idea was Fumento, so who else could you have been referring to? Here are the relevant passages from what I posted:

Tucci (13:28:45) : Now, Dr. De Cock in an infectious diseases guy with special training and experience in tropical medicine, but his purpose since taking over as director of the WHO’s Department of HIV/AIDS in 2006 has been “…to move toward trying to find rational regimens and get to one, or a few, regimens worldwide. So that someone in the United States would get the same drugs as someone in Namibia.” (interview published 11 June 2009)
………………..
I can’t fault Dr. De Cock for wanting more of those big taxpayer bucks turned toward increasing the availability of chemotherapeutic agents among the people of the Third World, …

Are you implying that he was speaking only on his own behalf (and in a turf-grabbing way moreover) in the statement I quoted and that the Independent incorrectly reported his statement as being an official report? Here’s what the newspaper said:

the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared.
In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, …

If so, surely WHO issued a denial of the Independent’s story. Presumably it would be on their website. Until you find it, I’m going to continue to believe that this was correctly reported as being an official statement.

Tucci (13:28:45) : but what is spent on education in the First World countries to prevent HIV-1 transmittal is of substantial economic value relative to the costs of diagnosis and treatment, and it’s also valuable in that it reduces the transmittal of the old litany of venereal diseases as well as Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.

Fine with me. Make condoms available widely and freely. Point out in public service ads that hetero transmission is possible, and that a little precaution can avoid it. Show scary movies to kids or on YouTube about what happens to heteros who have been careless and caught the bug. Just don’t employ exaggeration about hetero pandemics or hetero’s being at equal risk.

Oh sure. I’m not disputing that. But it’s counter-productive and wrong to “hype” or sex up” the level of concern. Once the public thinks you’re crying wolf, you’ll lose your credibility. That’s what’s happening now to the warming alarmists. They should have known better.

I apologise for dragging the thread off topic; but both Roger and I (who both clearly remember the hysterical degree of panic about AIDS in the late 80s and early 90s) were making a valid point about scientific exaggeration compounded by media hype. How the MSM love an apocalyptic scenario!
No-one is pretending that heterosexuals don’t get AIDS; and I’m sure Tucci is right about many of the reasons it’s so rife in Africa. But then as now people were coy about one of the main reasons for this: that ‘in ano’ intercourse is a very common means of birth control in Africa, absent access to condoms. I dare say some men too are not aware how many men (of all nationalities but some more than others) are very keen on the practice, even within heterosexual relationships. I’m pretty confident many cases of ‘heterosexually contracted’ AIDS were in fact contracted in this way, the ‘in ano’ membranes being much less robust.
As an aside, it amuses me that the same actor who did the voice-overs for the doom-laden AIDS commecials on TV back then, is now doing the ‘drive five miles less’ one now to help us ‘save carbon’! (It gave us all who knew him well back then a few wry smiles, since he was famous for spreading his favours far and wide LOL). As to the current ad, it just makes me scream FEWER!! at the TV

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